an apostle of water conservation. The combative advocate morphed
into a kinder, gentler conciliator. She saw that the daunting task she
faces will not be solved by legal, technical, or engineering solutions
alone. The solutions are political and cultural. After twenty years at
the helm of the Water Authority, this “European city girl,” as she
describes herself, has learned that “nothing is more emotional and
nothing is more political than water in the West.”
When Mulroy arrived in Las Vegas in the late 1980s, she found
a city whose residents were, as she puts it, “living under the illusion
that they were in a subtropical climate.” The city’s per capita water
consumption of 350 gallons per day was double that of New York
City, which gets ten times the rainfall of Las Vegas. Changing cultural assumptions about water use has proved a daunting task. In 2002,
the Water Authority, faced with a worsening drought, implemented
an ambitious conservation program targeting outdoor water use,
which accounts for 70 percent of Las Vegas’ water usage. The
authority banned water-thirsty grass in front yards, limited the number of hours and days people could water, imposed water budgets on
golf courses, and instituted fines for people and businesses that didn’t comply. Quite innovatively, it encouraged homeowners to rip out
lawns and install water-smart landscaping by offering them $2 for
each square foot of grass that they remove. The program has been
spectacularly successful. Mulroy proudly notes, “We’ve removed 80
million square feet of turf.”
The Water Authority has also sponsored a publicity campaign
to persuade citizens to conserve. My favorite, an ad that’s making the
rounds on the Internet, involves a public service announcement run
on Las Vegas television stations. In it, a little old lady hobbles down
a sidewalk, aided by a cane, past a lawn with sprinklers watering the
sidewalk as well as the lawn. She walks to the front door and rings
the bell. A young man answers, looks puzzled, because the woman is
a total stranger, and asks if he can help her. In response, she gives
him a swift, hard kick in the groin. As he doubles over in pain, a
voice-over threatens, “We warned you not to waste water.”
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